DITA
Definition
- DITA is an XML [[document standard] (vocabulary) for authoring modular text.
- “The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based, end-to-end architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. This architecture consists of a set of design principles for creating "information-typed" modules at a topic level and for using that content in delivery modes such as online help and product support portals on the Web.” (Introduction to the Darwin Information Typing Architecture, retrieved DSchneider).
DITA was created by IBM and is not an OASIS standard. It's general architecture may be quite interesting for educational sites, because it (1) accomodates for topic-oriented organization and reuse (as opposed to long documents), (2) allows specialization and (3) therefore supports semantic markup (as opposed to Docbook which is typographic basically).
DITA in education
DSchneider believes that DITA could play a role in education.
Here are to use case examples:
Pedagogical knowledge
- Educators and communities of practice are sometimes engaged in knowledge management tasks and thus constitute a knowledge-building community. In addition, there exist many structures financed to provide educators and other experts with structure information. Here are a few examples:
- pedagogical scenarios
- Smaller learning activities
- Lesson plans
- Feature lists of various Category:technologies technologies (as different as for example microworlds, LMSs, cognitive tools
- Websites like this wiki (e.g. pages that describe theories, concepts, methods, technology, etc.) and that are interlinked and categorized.
This kind of information is characterized by being structured, so in theory it could be captured by an SQL database. However, our experience shows that building SQL tables for each kind of information is very time consuming and not very flexible. The opposite alternative is unstructuredness like a Wiki. Wikis allow to enter data very quickly, but have the disadvantage that one can't easly produce text on demands (it's not easy to make a wiki book) and that full text search has its limits once the wiki starts growing.
DITA can address some of the needs for flexible information and document management. In particular if combined with a xml-database web application like [eXist http://exist.sourceforge.net/].
- A test case
DSchneider made some DITA extensions to have a writing tool for the TECFA SEED catalog